Joe Cinque is Dead

In 1997 a young man, Joe Cinque, was killed by his girlfriend, Anu Singh, with a massive overdose of Rohypnol and heroin. She had developed a bizarre plan to kill Joe, and herself - a plan that included a 'send-off' party at their Canberra flat.

Anu Singh was eventually found not guilty of murder, on the basis of diminished responsibility. The decision was made by a judge, rather than a jury, which is an option available under A.C.T. law.

Singh served 4 years of a 10-year sentence, for manslaughter, and during that time she completed a law degree and Masters in Criminology. She is now mentally healthy and ready to get on with her life.

Joe Cinque's family remains devastated, their pain and anger heightened by their belief that Anu Singh was responsible for her actions in 1997.

The crime and the subsequent court proceedings are the subjects of a new book by Helen Garner, 'Joe Cinque's Consolation'. In this program Phillip Adams speaks with Anu Singh - who is now out of jail - and with Joe's parents, Maria and Nino Cinque, who have decided to speak for the first time since the book was published.

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Tonight, nearly seven years after Joe was killed, I'll be speaking to his parents, Maria and Nino Cinque, still grieving, still angry.

And I'll also talk to the young woman who killed him, his girlfriend, Anu Singh.

On a weekend in late October, 1997, she first drugged Joe Cinque with Rohypnol and then injected him with lethal doses of heroin. At the time she was one of a group of bright young law students at the Australian National University, and she lived with Cinque in a Canberra flat.

She told friends that she intended to kill him, and herself, after holding bizarre send-off dinner parties. No one stopped her. One friend taught her how to give the fatal injection. Another, Madhavi Rao, even helped her purchase the drugs that killed him.

Anu watched Joe die in their Canberra flat for nearly 36 hours before at long last she called an ambulance. By then, far too late.

There was talk Singh blamed Joe for what she believed were her 'medical problems', or that he was threatening to leave her, that she was overwhelmed by the party drugs she took, that she was 'psychologically disturbed'.

She was found not guilty of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility, the verdict made by a single judge, not a jury. She served just four years of a 10-year sentence for manslaughter and during that time completed her law degree and a Masters in Criminology.

The story captured the imagination of one of Australia's best writers, Helen Garner. Helen writes like an angel; the last time I talked to her, she was writing about angels. This story took her into very different territory. But the bright young law student who killed Joe remains elusive in Garner's book. Helen didn't speak to Anu.

I met Anu Singh last week. She is now 31 and on parole. We sat in her parents' comfortable, suburban lounge-room. Full of suspicions, I asked her first if she was ready for the renewed notoriety the book is sure to bring.

Anu Singh: No, no, not at all. It's a terrible situation having to face the demon, essentially. It's taken me a long time to even come to grips with what happened seven years ago, and even to this day I still grapple with the many why?s, and I feel that with all of this renewed public interest in my case, it's confronting to have to go back to that and to think about the events.

Phillip Adams: Not just for you, of course, Anu, for everyone, for your parents, for Joe's parents.

Anu Singh: Absolutely. Yes.

Phillip Adams: For all your friends in Canberra.

Anu Singh: Yes, that's right. So it's not something that I'm necessarily ready for, or will ever be ready for, but it's certainly something that I know that I have to deal with and attempt to explain in any way I can, how and why it occurred.

Phillip Adams: Why are you talking to me?

Anu Singh: I guess because now that Helen's book's come out-well, first of all I think it's unfortunate that there wasn't a greater attempt to speak to me, and she brings up a lot of questions in the book, and I think more questions than answers; because there was no contact when she decided to go ahead with the book to speak to me, and I'm wanting to talk to you, I guess, to attempt to illuminate why-how all of this occurred.

Phillip Adams: Do you recognise yourself in Garner's descriptions of you?

Anu Singh: I think it's very exaggerated. Some aspects of it I can agree with, but I think that it is exaggerated because she hasn't spoken to me and she decided on what I was like by a photo. Apparently I raised her 'girl hackles'. I don't necessarily know what that implies, but I think that yes, the description of me is unfortunate because she didn't actually get a chance to speak to me and maybe she would have described me in a different way.

Phillip Adams: She did try.

Anu Singh: She did try. She wrote a letter to me when I was at Emu Plains. I was at that stage on a pre-release educational program, going from Emu's to Sydney Uni to complete my Masters in Criminology. And I actually wrote to her, saying, '... at this stage I don't particularly want to dredge up the terrible situations and circumstances of 26 October 1997 ... ' and possibly when I'm released I would speak to her. And I haven't received any contact from her since. Apparently she wrote a letter here in March, but I didn't get it, I didn't see it, so ...

Phillip Adams: You realise of course that she was very reluctant to write the book.

Anu Singh: Yes.

Phillip Adams: Helen doesn't do a lot of writing, and when she does, every word is painful, painfully expressed. Do you sense that when you read the book?

Anu Singh: I do, I do, and I feel that she was-and this is why, I guess, that when she essentially wrote to me at Emu's, it was at no stage had she decided to go ahead with it, and in fact it's only since reading the book that I've realised that she really didn't want necessarily to go ahead with it, and I think that she was particularly concerned to give the Cinques a voice and I think that's really admirable and a noble thing to do, given that they aren't represented in court, and unfortunately victims of crime don't have the ability to be able to speak about what they're going through. So I think that yes, the sense that I get is that she was compelled in that sense to go ahead with it.

Phillip Adams: Let's put Helen aside for a minute. Are you still the same person that you were at the time you killed Joe?

Anu Singh: Absolutely not. Even the psychiatric factors aside, I don't think you can go through such a tragic experience, spend time in jail, without changing. Well it certainly changed my entire viewpoint on everything, from what sort of career I want to get into, to notions of spirituality. So it certainly changed me completely, not just the event that occurred but the years since that.

Phillip Adams: Driving down to your home today, to the family home, I was thinking about how I would respond to you, how I would react to you. The young woman in the book is highly manipulative, she's a dazzling dramatist, self-dramatist, she seems to be able to bend almost anyone to her will, and I was concerned that you would be trying to spin, manipulate me. Are you?

Anu Singh: Do you think I am?

Phillip Adams: No, I'm asking you.

Anu Singh: Well no, but perhaps based on, I guess, prejudices of me-as you said, you've read the book-and this is, I guess, the unfortunate thing too, that I wanted to speak to you to alleviate anyone's view of me, of being that person. And as I said, there's elements of truth in what Helen's written, but I certainly think that it's been sensationalised.

Phillip Adams: Anu, how did you get to be that girl, the girl that killed Joe; how did that happen?

Anu Singh: I don't know if you can put it down to one factor. I think that it started two years prior to the event occurring. I went through a traumatic breakup with a long-term boyfriend, and I went into a fairly deep state of depression. I've subsequently found out that there's a family history of depression on the maternal side, so I've been told that possibly there's a genetic basis to the illness that I suffered from. I think in combination with that, I was going through a fairly significant eating disorder, and then of course, drug abuse on top of that. So it seems there was a number of circumstances.

Phillip Adams: Are you better now?

Anu Singh: Yes. I'm on Zoloft, and I take Zoloft daily. I've also had extensive psychotherapy both inside and outside. I think definitely better in terms of mental health but also a better person, I think, too, having had the experience.

Phillip Adams: There is a moment in the book when the idea of Garner writing it is discussed, and someone who knew you at the time, says 'Anu will love that'.

Anu Singh: I don't know who that was, I don't know necessarily ...

Phillip Adams: But you remember the comment, don't you?

Anu Singh: I do, I do.

Phillip Adams: All I'm suggesting is that the painful reliving of this through the book may in fact please you at some level.

Anu Singh: Oh, I don't know. I don't know how to respond to that, although I guess the whole-terms like narcissism, histrionic behaviour-that's all in the context of an illness that I was suffering, and for quite a few years before then.

Phillip Adams: Having read the book, and I must say I found it an agonising book to read, incredibly difficult-I still don't understand why you killed Joe. Do you understand?

Anu Singh: There's absolutely no legitimate or rational motivation at all. And the few days prior to that, my memories of it, is still a little bit hazy and the details are sketchy. But, I can't. It's terrible being in a state of mental health wellbeing, and trying to put myself back there, and determine what was going on and what I was thinking.

Phillip Adams: You're now very much involved in the law because you're now a graduate. There's an interesting irony here. Garner, in fact, is appalled by the legal processes. She finds them building up to a crescendo of injustice. How do you feel about the law, having been in fact embroiled in this, and now becoming a lawyer?

Anu Singh: I think for the most part the law is as good as it can be, in terms of criminal law, for instance, because I can understand Helen's perception of the law. But I guess the difficulty is that when you're going through a criminal trial-although obviously there's a lot of suffering and tragedy from the victim's point of view-unfortunately a victim's perspective doesn't affect someone's guilt or innocence, if you know what I mean, which is why there is little talk about the victims in a criminal proceeding because it is about establishing guilt from the offender's point of view, and I don't know whether Helen's actually been fair at all in her book regarding the legal process.

Phillip Adams: I can't help but feel that had the jury trial proceeded, that it might have been a different outcome. In other words, you would have been judged more harshly by the jury than you were by the judge sitting alone.

Anu Singh: Quite possibly, quite possibly. Though in terms of the judge taking a very forensic point of view and being very objective, I think that's important because unfortunately emotions and passions can get in the way of judgment and objectivity in a sense. And I had basically-that was my lawyer's determination at that time. I was simply going on his advice.

Phillip Adams: The great issue of the book comes down to the issue of responsibility. In your case, and in many cases, we're dealing with mental issues. Are you responsible, or were you responsible, for what you did, in your own view: sit in judgment on yourself.

Anu Singh: No, I absolutely am responsible and take full responsibility for it, and that's something that is difficult to come to terms with and it's something that I live with every single day. It's difficult that the whole notion of responsibility is predicated on the basis that someone is rational, and it makes it even more difficult that when you are rational, you can look back and see what you've done in a state of irrationality, and it's actually harder to be able to accept that, because I guess a lot of me wishes so much that I'd listened to so many people who had said, 'Look, there's something wrong, you need to actually get treatment in a different way.' I was consumed with what I perceived to be physical illnesses, and in fact what happened was that my illness manifested in a physical way, so that I was not at all wanting to accept the prospect that possibly there wasn't something wrong with my body, it was something with my mind. And I guess in terms of now accepting full responsibility, I'm trying to determine ways of making it up to my parents, to society, I don't think that ...

Phillip Adams: To the Cinques?

Anu Singh: Well I don't think there's anything that I can do there. I'm thinking about getting involved in a restorative justice program with them.

Phillip Adams: But all of us, I think, as citizens, and you yourself, have to agonise over this issue of-when does responsibility blur, or when does it dissolve because of the degree of mental problems?

Anu Singh: It is a huge dilemma, because unlike a physical illness, you can't see it, and unless you've gone through a significant mental health problem, it's difficult to even place yourself in someone else's position.

Phillip Adams: Let's go back to the story of Joe's death. Does Garner get the story right about how long it took?

Anu Singh: I don't think so, but as I said, my memory of that night is fairly sketchy, so I don't know for certain.

Phillip Adams: Did you love Joe?

Anu Singh: Yes.

Phillip Adams: And would you have married, do you think?

Anu Singh: Well. [Pause] Well, that's where we were going. I was hoping to. And I guess just dealing with his death was the hardest thing, and then having to deal with being responsible for it was another issue.

Phillip Adams: Anu, the fact is you weren't solely responsible. One of the things which appals anyone reading the book-it certainly appalled Garner-was that so many people could have moved to stop it happening, people that half knew, who were admitted to a bit of the secret, or a bit of the plan, could have, and should have prevented it. They don't. Doesn't it astonish you that you were part of a culture down in Canberra who were so passive and acquiescent to the thought that two young people were going to be involved in suicide and murder?

Anu Singh: [Pause] That's a difficult question to tackle. I don't know whether perhaps there was a sense of unreality about it, perhaps it was just a dramatic situation where no one believed or thought there was anything going to come of it. I don't know, I can't really answer that. I do know that I spoke to a lot of people about suicide and I was amazed at how many people had seriously considered it.

Phillip Adams: What the hell were the dinners about?

Anu Singh: The Monday night dinner was, I guess, a good-bye party for me, essentially; a suicide party. And I don't know how many people knew about that at the time. But I guess essentially a send-off, which sounds a bit bizarre.

Phillip Adams: Why didn't you commit suicide, given that that was so central to the whole plan. What stopped you?

Anu Singh: I think discussions with Madhavi that night went a long way to prevent anything from happening. She actually came along to see quite a few doctors with me and we decided that possibly we'd go and see someone else: there's got to be a way, there's got to be something that I can take, there's got to be some treatment involved. And so essentially I think that that's the reason that I had the discussion with her.

Phillip Adams: Anu, you mentioned, in passing, spirituality. What is your spiritual view of life and death? What do you think happens after death for example?

Anu Singh: These questions occurred to me when I was in jail, and I think that it's probably a natural sort of human instinct or desire to find meaning in suffering. I guess I've come to the point where I believe now that there is some purpose to our existence, that things maybe do happen for a reason, and often suffering is a way to connect with the Divine, God, whatever you want to call it, that in essence there is something more to life than we do know or believe with our current state of scientific knowledge.

Phillip Adams: It's interesting that we're having this discussion in your parents' home, and we are surrounded by images of spirituality. There's Buddha over there, there's some Ganesh figures in the kitchen. There's a collision of religious cultures right here. When you were thinking about suicide, what did that mean to you then? Did it mean total erasure of existence?

Anu Singh: Absolutely. Just at that stage I had no spiritual beliefs at all. I believed in the total scientific view that when you die, that's it, you just cease to exist. I guess you could say that I was an atheist at that time.

Phillip Adams: Did you discuss suicide with Joe?

Anu Singh: I discussed it quite a lot with Joe.

Phillip Adams: And his response?

Anu Singh: Well his response was, well, it doesn't have to end. I mean, keeping in mind that he was privy to my physical illness, and it's important to note that my illness did manifest in physical symptoms that you could see and you could touch. So he saw that, and was under the belief, as I was, that there was something physically wrong with me, and that unfortunately, no one could pick out exactly what it was.

Phillip Adams: It was your belief at the time that it was his fault, wasn't it, that he introduced you to this ...

Anu Singh: When I was first suffering from physical symptoms, I guess no, not at that stage. I think later, there was a lot of pressure to snap out of it, essentially. He'd met someone that I was not at that stage, he met someone who was always happy to go out, to be friendly to people, to dress up, and then I became a pathetic image of my former self: essentially not wanting to get out of bed, not getting dressed up, not wanting to do anything. And he was obviously very frustrated, and would start to say things like, 'Where have you gone? Where's this person I met?' And I guess it was when he would get angry with me in terms of, 'Well why can't you snap out of it?' that I would then turn around and think to myself, my gosh, you know, it's because of you that I'm like this. That sort of mentality.

Phillip Adams: And one of the arguments, or one of the threads in the book, is that you wanted to punish him for that. But there's another argument that emerges that he was going to leave you. Do you remember which of these issues was paramount at the time?

Anu Singh: There was no indication that he was going to leave me, none whatsoever.

Phillip Adams: What did you learn in jail?

Anu Singh: First and foremost I learnt that people are people, and that unfortunately there's this notion that people who commit crimes are somehow evil or bad, inhuman, and therefore should be treated as such. What I actually found was that the majority of women that I met were actually beautiful people who had been caught up in situations that they perceived they had no control over, and ended up committing crime whether it be to finance a drug habit, or through issues of mental health. And I actually believed that it's very unfortunate that given the fact that they've committed a crime, that they're relegated to this less-than-human status, and certainly don't have the sorts of rights that normal members in community have. And I just think it's unfortunate that the media has this very skewed and sensationalised view.

Phillip Adams: Well at the moment there are many people I'm sure who'd want to bring back the death penalty, including of course on that issue, the Cinques.

Anu Singh: I would just-that's a terrible, terrible situation-and I would say before anyone actually decides to get on that bandwagon, that they should meet people, they should talk to people, they should talk to offenders rather than talking about them, attempting to gain some insight into their lives, before making such a judgment.

Phillip Adams: Well this may be where Helen Garner's done you a big favour because it will allow you now to conduct a public campaign around the issues that have become important to you, won't it?

Anu Singh: Well, I think it was a huge shame on Helen's part not to speak to either me or Madhavi, when she had decided to definitely go ahead with the book because I think it was a rare opportunity to bring these issues out. And they are issues that are important particularly given that, well, women in particular-the increase in the female jail population has doubled that of the male population, and that's a huge concern. And just perpetuating this 'us versus them' mentality doesn't really get society anywhere, I don't think.

Phillip Adams: Well it's a very important question, and Helen's going to have to deal with that, because this criticism of her performance will be raised again, and again and again. I should tell you that we did invite her to participate in the program but she declined. If the opportunity presented itself, would you now talk to Helen?

Anu Singh: Absolutely. I had never said that I wouldn't speak to her, there was never an emphatic refusal by me to speak to her. And had she have tried to contact me last year, the year before, I would have been happy to speak to her, particularly given the issues she's brought up in the book. Perhaps I could have shed some insight into what she was thinking and the issues she wanted to bring up.

Phillip Adams: Tell us about the case you've launched in the Supreme Court against the Parole Board?

Anu Singh: That's a case under administrative law. There is no avenue for an appeal of the Parole Board's decision under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

Phillip Adams: I think we should just explain the terms of this a little bit. Your parole was cancelled at one point because you were accused of smoking marijuana.

Anu Singh: Yes, my parole was actually revoked, which means in the ACT scheme of things, unlike New South Wales, that my parole now starts again, so that instead of, even though I've spent two and a half years out in the community crime free, that once your parole's revoked you're liable to spend the whole six years back in jail. So that instead of my parole finishing in 2007, it would finish in 2010. If I was revoked under the New South Wales system, I would be serving another three and a half years, as opposed to six.

Phillip Adams: Now the case in the Supreme Court would in fact change the law if you were to win, wouldn't it?

Anu Singh: It would serve as some sort of a precedent in terms of changing perhaps the procedures of the Parole Board, and confirming what their true role is, because one of the major things about my case was the notion that parole boards are not about sentencing, and the real purpose of the Parole Board is to aid and supervise an offender's attempts at rehabilitation. And I would hope that using the option to revoke someone's parole, which is of course the most severe option that they have in their discretion, would be a last option.

Phillip Adams: Anu, will you be able to practice law of any sort in the future?

Anu Singh: Apparently at the moment the way it stands, is that a criminal conviction is not a total bar to practising. Of course, while you're conditionally serving a sentence and while I'm on parole, it would be impossible.

Phillip Adams: But in due course you will theoretically be able ...

Anu Singh: Not necessarily. I would have to disclose the nature of my conviction to the Legal Practitioners Admissions Board, and then they would make a determination.

Phillip Adams: But you would bring to the world of law a fairly interesting set of experiences and heightened perceptions.

Anu Singh: Well I would hope so. And that's why I've chosen now to specialise in the areas of criminal law, human rights, jurisprudence.

Phillip Adams: And restorative justice.

Anu Singh: Yes, absolutely.

Phillip Adams: Would you be willing to participate in such a program with the Cinques?

Anu Singh: I'm hoping to, and I'm actually liaising with Ken Marslew from Enough is Enough and he is attempting to facilitate that as well.

Phillip Adams: Helen Garner is very concerned with spirituality as well. She would have liked to ask you about your soul. Let me put that question to you on her behalf: How's your soul travelling?

Anu Singh: I actually feel I've started to make reparations to my family, to society. I feel that I've actually made my peace with the Divine and that I'm hopefully using this terrible situation, the terrible tragedy that occurred, to make some sort of a difference to particularly offending women, women in jail. And I guess it's unfortunate that if Helen is very interested in spirituality that nowhere in her book or in her psyche it seems, is there room for words like 'hope', 'redemption', 'compassion', 'forgiveness'.

Phillip Adams: Well she couldn't see them in your character. The figure we see in that book is really a terrifying woman.

Anu Singh: I know.

Phillip Adams: I mean Lady MacBeth comes off better.

Anu Singh: It's awful, and the person that she's portrayed is someone she has basically totally fictionalised, based on seeing a photo of me in The Canberra Times.

Phillip Adams: No, I'm not sure that's quite fair, because there are so many people in the book who knew you, who talk about you, and a portrait emerges of an Anu which is very detailed, very layered, but not very flattering.

Anu Singh: I don't know how to answer that.

Phillip Adams: Well you've certainly answered every question I've put to you today, and I thank you for your time.

Anu Singh: Thank you.

Phillip Adams: Anu Singh, who was acquitted of murdering her boyfriend Joe Cinque but convicted of manslaughter.

Joe Cinque is dead.

He'd only been living in Canberra a few months when he was killed on that fateful weekend in October 1997. He was just 26.

Joe grew up in Newcastle, a couple of hours' drive north of Sydney, where he was the much loved, eldest son of Italian immigrants, Maria and Nino. Theirs is a large Italian-Australian house that Nino designed and built. On the top floor Joe's bedroom remains largely untouched since his death seven years ago.

Up the hallway is the room Nino tells me that Joe and his younger brother used as a gymnasium to 'make muscles'. And downstairs on the dining room table, where Maria can keep a watchful eye as she busies herself in the kitchen, is a large photograph of Joe. A small crucifix is draped over the frame and three beautiful, home-grown camellias pay homage to his memory.

Last week Nino and Maria were kind enough to invite us into their home. We sat at their kitchen table and I asked Maria and Nino to tell me about Joe.

Maria Cinque: My son. Well, since I was a little girl I always wanted to be a mother, like a lot of women. I never thought of a career. Maybe in those days it's a bit different than it is today. But I wanted to have a big family. When finally I met my husband, I wanted to have children straight away. When he was born I finally fulfill my wish, I'm a woman now. And he was the most beautiful baby. Every mother thinks that, but he was the most beautiful baby. And we wanted to have a lot of children, but I had two miscarriages and I had another child, Anthony, afterwards.

The house was always full of boys here, some girls, but not many. Boys. Two boys, you know. I used to whinge about messing up and dirty shoes, but I really loved every minute of that. Joe was no big trouble, was full of life. He did everything; played tennis, scouts, cricket, soccer, everything. He liked to play sport. He was very good at school.

Phillip Adams: He does seem to have been very popular, all through his life.

Maria Cinque: Oh yes, he was very popular. His teachers loved him. We were always proud of him. And when he finished Year 12, we worked very hard, we sent him to university. He was going to do architecture, but he doesn't like to be inside too much, so he changed to civil engineering. So many friends there. I know all the families of these friends. A lot of friends they still come to see me, a lot of his friends still come to see me every now and then, and on his 21st birthday we said 'Do you want to go overseas, or do you want a big party?' He wanted to go overseas for 12 months after he finished uni. But he ended up having the party and the ticket and everything. So we were very, very proud of him.

Phillip Adams: He liked cars, didn't he, Dad? He bought a Mazda sports car not long before he was killed.

Nino Cinque: Yes, two months before. But before that I bought him the first, it was a Toyota, then I bought him an Alfa Romeo.

Phillip Adams: Good Italian car.

Nino Cinque: Then he was working in Canberra, and he bought himself a beautiful car, it was a lovely car.

Phillip Adams: So we're talking about a happy, healthy, knockabout, ordinary, decent human being. And of course life is made up of random chances, accidents happy and unhappy. And he meets a girl, Anu Singh. You met her too and your instinct was ...

Maria Cinque: I had a lot of fights on the phone before I met her. She was just ringing constantly. Joe used to come home around six o'clock at night. We have tea together at this table, and we love to talk about what happened to everybody.

Phillip Adams: The day?

Nino Cinque: We have no radio, no television in the kitchen, because when we eat we have to talk.

Phillip Adams: A great Italian tradition.

Maria Cinque: Yes, but she ring about ten past six every night. I got on the phone and told her to stop calling at that time, she can call later. And she would call in the middle of the week sometimes to pretend to be sick, and she wanted Joe to go down there, and that's the main time we had an argument with Joe. She want him all the time, she just didn't want him to be with friends, family.

Phillip Adams: Can you believe that it has happened?

Nino Cinque: I still I don't believe.

Maria Cinque: He didn't believe until he saw his son. He didn't believe it. I did. I did, before the police told me. I said she killed my son.

Phillip Adams: Are you still grieving, or is the grief overwhelmed by anger?

Maria Cinque: You never stop grieving. You never do stop grieving. [Pause] It's a lot of anger. It's a lot of anger because, why nobody warn our son? Why she did it, why she did this, there's no reason, she never give us a reason.

Phillip Adams: I asked her why she did it, and she has no answers to that.

Maria Cinque: She forgets.

Nino Cinque: Yes but if she love him, the way she say in court, the way she said to everybody, why she doesn't kill herself?

Maria Cinque: As well.

Phillip Adams: The extraordinary thing about Helen's book-and incidentally I have to ask you, do you like the book?

Maria Cinque: Oh yes.

Phillip Adams: You're happy with the book?

Maria Cinque: We are very happy with the book. I think there was a time Helen wasn't going to do it, and I really rely on the book because all the injustice in court and the stress and everything, and we really want our son not to be forgotten that easily.

Phillip Adams: It's a terribly difficult book to read. It is so gut-wrenching. And the thing that I found so extraordinary was the way the trials-and there was more than one of course, three trials-the way the trials take the human beings out of the story. And of course Joe almost disappears, and Helen tries to bring him back.

Maria Cinque: Over and over again, yes.

Phillip Adams: And she is infuriated, as you two were in the court, by the way the procedures, by the way the legal mumbo jumbos eliminate the humans.

Maria Cinque: That's right. They make jokes. They're laughing by themselves. We complain a couple of times, and they said to us, 'But this to us is a job, we have to make it easy; we have to be like this otherwise we go crazy'.

Phillip Adams: So they're telling jokes, and the judge is making witty remarks.

Maria Cinque: Oh yes. They would just sit there, they talk about, you know, someone, all these people kill our son, and they don't say that's funny, but they make jokes in general, and we don't think it's funny. What's going on?

Phillip Adams: But occasionally you break out in anger in the court, don't you?

Maria Cinque: Oh a few times, yes.

Phillip Adams: Did you, Nino, did you cry out in rage as well?

Nino Cinques: I suffer. I suffer.

Maria Cinque: The last day of the trial for Rao he collapsed in the restaurant that night because we couldn't believe it, that the judge had let her go. Nothing. When they said not guilty, we just scream, went on and on, what's going on here?

Nino Cinque: What I can do?

Maria Cinque: Keep suffering. To myself, I don't know about Nino, but we do suffer of course, you never stop suffering. But since the book came out and I receive a lot of letters from people, and people ringing and talking to us, and I find a relief to know that people finally know what's happening. Because a lot of people had a lot of funny ideas, maybe he was in drugs himself, there was something going on. And now that the book's out people can read the book and understand the truth, what's happening. And I feel like a sort of relief, a big relief with that.

Phillip Adams: Reading Helen's version of events one gets the impression of a highly intelligent, manipulative young woman, dealing with a comparatively innocent young man.

Maria Cinque: He was innocent in that way.

Nino Cinque: Yes he was innocent but he was 26 years old. He'd been for one year around the world by himself, he had a-I don't say, just a couple more girlfriends before her. He'd been in Italy by himself, he'd been in America by himself.

Phillip Adams: Good point. Well OK from that observation comes this question: How could Joe allow his life to be taken over and completely manipulated?

Maria Cinque: That's right. I think I got some idea it's because she pretend to be sick, and Joe felt like ...

Phillip Adams: Well she pretended or believed herself to be sick.

Maria Cinque: I don't think she believed she was sick. I think she knew all the way that the drugs was making her do that, not sickness or the rubbish Ipecac. I don't think so. And of course Joe didn't know all this. He thought she needs him, and he loves to take care of her, and of course he found her attractive. I don't know why, but he found her attractive.

Nino Cinque: He was in love.

Maria Cinque: He was in love, what can you do?

Nino Cinque: And one night he came here and the phone ring, and he turns and say, 'I have to go to Canberra, Anu's sick'. I said 'Just a minute, you don't go nowhere. You're not her doctor. Her mother and her father, they are doctors, they can look after her. What do you have to go to Canberra for?' So he got back on the phone and tell her that night he won't be there. The week after, he doesn't tell nothing to us, he just take the plane and go to Canberra. For what?

Phillip Adams: I think that what Maria says is persuasive, that he is in fact in a sense captured by compassion, because he cares for the girl, he will go the extra distance. She was incapable of telling me when I talked to her, whether her motive in wanting herself dead and him dead involved vengeance, love, the threat of being left-I mean there's all these possibilities.

Maria Cinque: I think that's the only one.

Phillip Adams: You think it's only the fact that-she denies that that was ever going to happen.

Maria Cinque: No, I believe that Joe was leaving her, that's why she killed him. From the beginning I said this. When, the day after Joe died, we went down there in Canberra, to his place to get some of his stuff. We straightaway told the police there was a lot of his stuff missing there. We never found that stuff.

Phillip Adams: You've never found it, have you, the missing suitcase and the clothing.

Maria Cinque: That's right. His diary, we got the diary upstairs. It says to leave straight away Monday 27th. He was going to leave her. We knew from the beginning, but I think the police try to investigate, nobody come forward to say, look, his stuff is in a certain place. He was going to leave her because in the end he realised that she was not sick, she was just drugged.

Phillip Adams: Nino and Maria, you are now able to speak out, but you were silenced by the court process. I was astonished to realise, or to learn, that at no stage in proceedings were you able to speak up or say what you were feeling, thinking, at all.

Maria Cinque: Yes we had been told by the prosecutor, 'You can't talk to the witness.' You have to sit there, don't say nothing, day in and day out. We go there at half past nine in the morning, sit all day until one o'clock, then go back in until half past four. Go back in the motel, lie down because we were so tired, just exhausted, and like Nino said before, one Monday morning we walk in there and Dr Singh is on the stand testifying on behalf of his daughter. We thought, What's going on here?

Phillip Adams: We should make this clear, we're talking about Anu's father, Dr Singh, who gives evidence in her defence.

Maria Cinque: That's right. And we've been told we can't do that because we're just parents. What's fair about this?

Phillip Adams: And you have to sit there day after day, week after week, you come back to Newcastle, you go back to Canberra. Nino, how do you fill those times?

Nino Cinque: [Pause]

Maria Cinque: He said once, 'I feel like a boat on the high seas. I don't know where I'm going to go, where the tide is going to take me. I'm just sitting there, and I don't know where I'm going to go', and that's what we felt like.

Nino Cinque: I don't know what to do, because two police was always on my side. They may think I can do something stupid. They tell me, Please Nino, don't do anything stupid.

Phillip Adams: They were afraid that you might?

Nino Cinque: Yes. I just sit still. Don't say nothing, even when she passed [close to] my nose about a foot. I can slap her, I can do anything to her, but I just don't because I've got two police on my side.

Phillip Adams: Is it conceivable that you could ever forgive Anu?

Nino Cinque: No, impossible.

Maria Cinque: No way.

Nino Cinque: Impossible.

Phillip Adams: She seeks redemption now, she wants to be involved in restorative justice programs, she would like to be involved with you.

Maria Cinque: No way, no way. The only thing she can do for us is disappear from this Earth. That's all.

Nino Cinque: That's the way I can forget her. If she kill herself.

Maria Cinque: That's all.

Nino Cinque: Let us in peace, and the father and the mother and her brother, because they're suffering. And to kill herself, I have to go to see her if she's really dead.

Phillip Adams: Maria, has your religion helped you, or has it failed you?

Maria Cinque: Actually I used to go to church much more before. And I was going afterwards too, but once at church one Sunday the priest was talking about you have to go visit people in jail, you've got to forgive, blah-blah all these things. I got up and was going to tell him something. Then I sat down, I said, Don't make a fool of yourself any more. I just don't go.

Phillip Adams: And you feel the same way I think Nino, by your facial expression?

Nino Cinque: I don't believe it any more.

Phillip Adams: So it's cost you your faith as well as your family?

Nino Cinque: Not 100 per cent but I tell to him, I say Jesus Christ, what you done to me?

Phillip Adams: It's interesting ...

Nino Cinque: What I done wrong?

Phillip Adams: Anu says that the experience has given her a greater feeling of spirituality, while it has cost you yours.

Maria Cinque: Oh has it? What about before? When did she go to church before? Now she has God, where's God before that? Her father said in court that she didn't have any belief. She was 27 years old, she didn't have any belief. She had a belief in that she could kill my son. When she saw my son die on the floor, she just kick him, that's what we heard in court.

Phillip Adams: Listeners have to understand that he took a long time to die, that it was incredibly prolonged and terrible. I understand that you didn't know this?

Maria Cinque: No. Maybe a few days afterwards. How long before we knew that? Quite a few days afterwards. Even in court we found we started finding more things in court. And you sit there and they tell you, you know, what do they call the people who cut up the bodies?

Phillip Adams: The coroner.

Maria Cinque: The coroner. We found so much in his liver, in his heart, his brain. You sit there day in, day out, and you listen to that about your son being cut up. People don't understand. They think that once someone dies, the rest of the family they just grieve for six months and then everything start to go normal. No way, no. Our family has been destroyed by this. Our younger son has been destroyed. He lost the will to live, he's not the same any more. He's been in and out of the mental hospital. He's much better now thank God, but it'll never be the same.

Phillip Adams: Helen describes you, Maria, with-both of you-with immense respect. But she focuses largely on you, and she's quite awed by you as a mother, as she watches you in the court.

Maria Cinque: It's your instinct. I watch a lot of documentaries. Animals, they die themselves to protect their young children. How can you not do that? It's the mother. And for my role, even though he was 26 years old, I felt like I didn't protect him enough, because I didn't want him to go down in Canberra and live there, I didn't want him, and I could not stop him. I wish I broke his leg. If I only knew.

Phillip Adams: One aspect of the story which is a revelation to me, and I find so perplexing, is that so many people could have acted to prevent it, and nobody does. I don't understand this about ...

Maria Cinque: I don't understand. They're all, they're last year at the law school, most of them because they're all her friends, there ...

Phillip Adams: They were lawyers, or now are lawyers.

Maria Cinque: They are lawyers, and they would eat my son's food in his house that night, and most of them knew she was going to kill herself and kill my son. You sit there and don't say nothing to this poor innocent man here. She's got this thing in her head, and she's going to kill you, kill herself. Do something. What kind of people are these?

Phillip Adams: The fact that many of them are now lawyers leads us to a figure in the book who I find almost tragic, and that is the judge. Has your attitude towards the judge changed a little by reading of Helen's encounter with him?

Maria Cinque: Oh no, no. I still find him-he did a terrible job, that. I still find he did the wrong thing.

Phillip Adams: He's a Christian man, as you know, he's lost a child as he tells ...

Maria Cinque: Oh yes, he lost an infant by some disease. It's not the same thing.

Phillip Adams: He acknowledges that it can't be the same thing, and he expresses great compassion towards both of you, but he is dealing with this strange mechanism of the law.

Maria Cinque: Yes, that's right. But I want to point one thing because this is always on my mind. Before she killed my son, Singh said 'I'm going to do this, I've read enough books about psychology and all this, and I'm going to get away with it, I know how to play insane. I know how to get away because I know the law'. And the judge knew all this, and her father, Dr Singh, employ all this American, English psychiatrist to testify on behalf of their daughter. The judge, such an intelligent man, knew all this. I don't want to call him a fool, but what a fool can a man be if he believes all this rubbish. She said I'm going to do it and he believed that.

Phillip Adams: Just as you rage with emotion in the court, I as a reader was raging, I wanted to shout, I wanted to shout at ...

Maria Cinque: Commonsense, commonsense, that's all.

Nino Cinque: I don't know much about the law-this and that-but manslaughter means when someone homicides involuntarily.

Phillip Adams: It's an accident.

Nino Cinque: It's an accident. Now she was preparing this homicide for two months. She ask a friend for a gun, for this, for knife, for this and that ...

Phillip Adams: And finally for her syringes full of heroin.

Maria and Nino Cinque: That's right.

Nino Cinque: How you can say it is manslaughter?

Phillip Adams: Maria, let me put a 'for instance', a hypothesis to you. Imagine that Anu was genuinely, deeply, profoundly ill. Would you then be able to forgive?

Maria Cinque: If she was really sick, yes, maybe yes. If I know she was, I believe she was sick.

Nino Cinque: I don't think so. I don't think so.

Maria Cinque: No, I don't believe she's sick.

Nino Cinque: Not even if she was sick.

Phillip Adams: It is a central issue of the story isn't it, about responsibility.

Nino Cinque: That's why, please tell me ...

Phillip Adams: And this story absolves Anu of responsibility.

Maria Cinque: That's right, that's right. I can't even begin to ...

Phillip Adams: Are you two stronger as a result of this, or weaker?

Maria Cinque: In some things I am stronger.

Nino Cinque: I don't know what you mean for stronger because I'm strong in so many ways, but when you talk about my son, I'm very weak because I lost my son.

Phillip Adams: And that's something that Helen keeps saying again and again in the book. She keeps coming back to the same sentence. Joe Cinque is dead. Do you feel compassion for her parents?

Maria Cinque: For the mother maybe, not for the father.

Nino Cinque: For the parents why not? Because I know her father from 30 years. I was working in Edgeworth and one day I got hurt on one of my fingers, and I go to see him.

Phillip Adams: This is extraordinary, this is not in the book.

Nino Cinque: No.

Phillip Adams: So thirty years ago ...

Nino Cinque: I know him.

Phillip Adams: You know him, you have an injury and you go to him.

Nino Cinque: Yeah, and I know he's a normal man, he's a good man.

Maria Cinque: He's not a good man Nino.

Phillip Adams: Well as I said, I bring you a message from Anu, who extends to you her profound regrets and wants to in fact involve you, if it were possible, in a restorative justice program, and your answer is No?

Maria Cinque: No way, no. She can rot in hell, forever. She said she was going to kill herself, what she is waiting for?

Nino Cinque: I want to say something else. When Anu Singh left my son dying, vomiting blood, what's she done? Did she kick him? Did she put the needle on him? What's she done? Nobody say nothing. She left him and go away. If today you see a dog on the street, he's dying, I'd pick him up and take him away. She saw a man dying, she hasn't done nothing. Those people, they not right to stay alive. They not right to stay alive.

Phillip Adams: Maria, is Joe still alive for you?

Maria Cinque: Alive? In my heart he'll always be alive, in my heart.

Phillip Adams: Nino?

Nino Cinque: [Pause] No. Every Saturday I go to the cemetery, I go to see him.

Maria Cinque: I still talk to him. I still talk to him in his room, to his picture by myself, the cemetery, and tell him what's happening. About the book and everything. I still talk to him and I feel like he can hear me. Probably my friends think I'm crazy, but ...

Phillip Adams: No, you're not crazy, it's very important.

Maria Cinque: He's still alive in my heart, he's very, very alive in my heart. It's part of me. He'll never be dead in that way.

Phillip Adams: Maria and Nino, it's been a great privilege to talk to you today. I think the book does Joe's memory honour, and I think it plays great tribute to your courage. And for what little it's worth, my heart goes out to you and I'm sure everyone listening to this program will feel exactly the same way.

Maria Cinque: I want to thank you Helen for writing the book and all the people who've written letters to us. People listening, and I appreciate everything and I keep them very dear to my heart. I thank you.

Phillip Adams: Maria and Nino Cinque, the proud, angry parents of Joe, killed at the age of 26 on a weekend in late October 1997.